


when you paint an evil thing

by helioic



Series: tbz as ur besties [3]
Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Private School, Angst, Baseball Player Ji Changmin | Q, Blood and Injury, But also adorable, Changmin as your dark academia best friend, Character Study, Dark Academia, Feelings, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Ji Changmin | Q is Scary, Non-Graphic Violence, One Shot, POV First Person, Pining, Sports, Unnamed though, non-gendered MC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helioic/pseuds/helioic
Summary: “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me you aren’t afraid of me.”My chest seizes up in silence. I find myself unable to say a word.
Relationships: Ji Changmin | Q/Reader
Series: tbz as ur besties [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950961
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	when you paint an evil thing

**Author's Note:**

> "when you paint an evil thing, do you invoke it or take away its power?"  
> siken again ! ji changmin as your elusive, charmingly dangerous, dark academia best friend. loosely inspired by one of my fav books of all time: if we were villains.

The morning bell rings, shrill and winding. A reminder that there are places to be, classes to be missed, or possible tardy slips to be received.

Crisp uniforms swiftly bustle to and fro the long hallways, intermingled with idle chatter of yesterday’s news. There’s talk of upcoming sports matches, physics finals, and outrage over spring dorm assignments. It is the white noise of academia.

The late November chill has clung to everyone’s shoulders, making it more unbelievably dreadful to be on campus grounds. But _misery loves company_ , so the idea of collective suffering is what holds everything in place.

Alongside that, comes an urgency to be expected when the year is almost at an end. This palpable anticipation for the two-week break with less readings— it’s a shame holiday work is still a thing—no professors breathing down your neck, but most importantly: _year-end parties_.

But before one reaches the elysium of bliss, one must first endure the grueling underworld. 

And for a journalism student like me with a laptop always in tow and interviews set to the brim, Hades takes the form of week-long tailings of the extracurriculars.

I’m in charge of the sports article this year so that means I have a week to suffer through the obnoxious chatter of jocks and locker rooms just so I can get my scoop, and god forbid I have to be trapped in that room filled with explosive testosterone alone. 

_This is where he comes in_ , I think, as I watch the boy who is swiftly making his way toward me raise his brows in mock exasperation. 

We’re only a few minutes behind but that is an eon by his standards. I wave back gleefully.

“It’s like you’re _trying_ to miss pottery,” he tells me in a tone that rings quite like my mother, his eyes playfully fleeting to me in accusation. I roll my own as he gingerly grabs my wrist to tug me along.

I let him do so for the most part because it amuses me, this grating need of his to always keep on my toes, and also because I probably wouldn’t know where I would be without him. 

“Tell me again why I agreed to take pottery first thing in the morning?”

“...something about it being good for the soul?” he offers, sparing me a glance before he smiles politely at the year 2 girls we pass by. 

They’re peering outside of their classrooms similar to how bamboo trees bend, strands of dark hair swaying in uncertainty, just to catch a short glimpse of him. He slows down his stride just a tad, although I’m the only one who notices, and I can’t resist the laugh that bubbles from me.

“Your fanclub’s growing larger by the day,” I tease, winking at the younger girls before we turn the corner. “Soon enough, they’ll fill the whole auditorium.”

“Shut up,” he bites, but the warmth that rushes to his ears says otherwise. 

Finally matching his brisk pace so I’m not so far behind him, making him hold my wrist at an awkward angle, I add, “Was it because of that nasty home run last week?” 

“Maybe... but can’t it also be that they just think I’m charming and approachable?” he asks, shrugging, an obvious pout in his voice. “Maybe they want to be friends.”

“Oh, please. You’re dense if you don’t acknowledge that any one of them would fight for your hand the moment you ask,” I pull at our linked arms for emphasis, and to support my point. “Besides, the friend spot is already taken.”

“By who?” he looks back at me with a grin, moving his hand down to intertwine with mine as we arrive at the classroom door. 

His hair’s messy—only because he has a torrid habit of running his hand through it— but in the most pleasing way possible. It’s unfair, really, the way everything about him seems to fall perfectly in place. Every thread and nonexistent crease of his blue coat and cream vest, his bright doe eyes, and the slight of his smile. 

I have no clue how the star player of the baseball team ended up being the biggest dork in the world— and even more damning, how he ended up as my best friend— but everyday I thank my lucky stars for it. 

“Promise me you’ll help me interview the football boys. You are still friends with that lot, right?” I say instead, before he notices I’ve been staring for too long. 

I wordlessly put my hand, fingers still intertwined with his, against my other, as though to put him in between, leaving him no room to refuse.

“I’d love to,” he says cheekily, tilting his head to the side. “But only if you help me make a vase.”

—

Apparently Tuesdays are make-or-break days on the field because it’s the day game dates are announced. That or the lack thereof.

I hear one of the guys swear like a sailor before a crash rings through the locker room, large and loud as they are, and I announce a silent prayer to myself for all the helmets and other breakable equipment these frustrated, stunted-child men have handled.

I watch from the door as he makes his way to the sorry crowd for me, gathering high-fives and chest bumps easily, like they’re all some part of clique. And perhaps through the lenses of collegiate sports they are, but as I see them, they’re more like a juvenile cult.

It’s still jarring to see him so comfortable around the jocks, his lean stature being around all the muscle and bruteness, though I’m reminded that there are parts of him that fit right into the role. The wicked glint in his eyes when he’s passionate about something, the streak of crimson tucked in his hair, the way he likes to be in control—

“It’s a bust,” he walks back to me at the door, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I know you only need like two dudes and a few sentences, but they’re all shot—” he pauses, a finger on his chin.

“…. _Pissed_ , is the word for it.”

I try not to be too annoyed at the outcome, and instead focus on the way the word sounds almost laughable from his mouth. “Let me guess, their game got cancelled?”

“Yup. Something about the principal making way for a school charity day,” he shrugs, walking past me to get to what seems to be the utility room, where I assume there’s empty benches, or something that intrigues him one way or another. 

“I’ll give them about two days to get over it.”

“I don’t have two days,” I groan but follow his lead anyway. “We’re a football-centered college for fuck’s sake– how he could cancel the most important game of the season is beyond me.”

“Football _and_ baseball-centered,” he points out flatly, using a key and a heave to open the heavy door that leads into the utility room. For a moment I think I hit a nerve there, but he carries on wordlessly, and I’m reminded of how he has none. “He probably needs extra funds for the holidays.”

“What?” I look around the dimly lit space and find a bunch of old sports equipment; soccer balls, bats and climbing ropes strewn about the dusty floor, untouched and aging. It’s apparent that no one comes in here these days.

“You know the principal’s like, … like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s obviously only doing all these charity events to take a cut from the money,” he says passively, as though we’re out for a stroll, reaching for a string that hangs from the ceiling; the lightswitch.

“And _I’m_ the one with the bad mouth,” I say unbelievably. His ability to be so blunt that it passes off as simple commentary should be some sort of a crime. “Aren’t you scared he’ll cancel your game too?”

“Oh, he could try,” he scoffs, amused, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. The yellow light illuminating his face makes him look like a fox in the middle of mischief.

“Is it just me or are you getting more daring by the day?” I raise my brows at him accusingly, to which he just chuckles, disappearing between the declining shelves that fill the room. “What the hell are we even doing here?”

“We’re here becau—

The loud grating of the door opening cuts his sentence short. I look to find one of the volleyball coaches, her neon green sports jacket a blinding beacon in the barely lit room, who likely saw the light from outside. She is alarmed at the sight of me, as much as I am to her, and she’s quick to survey my surroundings, eyeing me up and down.

“How did you get in here?” she asks, voice keen and lilting. Her high ponytail swings back and forth behind her like a makeshift pendulum. “This room was locked. Where’d you get the key?”

Indignation rises from within me, but I pause, wide-eyed and perplexed. Wait, how _did_ he? 

However before I could even open my mouth, just like flipping on a switch, he’s back. He steps in front of me, his voice coming out measured and easy. The sight of him visibly makes the volleyball coach relax. _Oh, of course_.

“It was open when we got here,” he shrugs, almost sounding bored. “I was just looking for bats I could use for practice.”

It takes a moment of her gaze fleeting on the two of us, before she finally gives in. She nods as though she’d expected his explanation and known all along, gingerly looking over the old equipment in the dilapidated room.

The thing is, I can hardly blame her for trusting his word so easily. He has that kind of air to him— the kind that makes you want to trust him. I mean, how could you not? What with the way he smiles at you like you’re the only person in the world, voice mellowed out in sweet tones, eyes bright and gleaming, you’d think, _this boy can’t hurt a fly, now can he?_

And it works. Because it’s him and it always works. The volleyball coach smiles at the two of us politely before she wishes him luck on his upcoming game.

When she’s gone, I turn to him and say: “Really?”

“It was _half-true_ ,” he says smugly, showing me his arms filled with old baseball bats and dust.

—

It’s a day after that whole fiasco with the footballers when I decided to scrap the original prompt in exchange for writing about the baseball team’s popular centerfield instead. My chief advisor agrees as soon as she hears his name, as though she wouldn’t have had it any other way. (“Why didn’t you tell me you were such close friends with _him_?”)

“I know this whole newspaper thing is important to you, but what’s there to write about?” he asks, eyes fleeting to me before looking over a chemistry book from across the library table. 

His Science final isn’t until next week but he’s been studying for three days straight, and he’s determined to make me suffer with him at every step of the way. 

He flips through the pages with one hand, the idle one flat on the table, visibly shaking. 

I look around at the other students invested in their own studious hellscapes, thinking about how one can miss so much of what’s hidden in plain sight, my lonesome in what feels like _his_ world. 

The call for nicotine is a beckon he hides well, but not well enough. Not from me at least. 

Though it makes me wonder if there’s anything else he’s managed to conceal, what I haven’t already figured out from all our years together. It’s inviting, this challenge.

“Plenty.” I assure him.

—

He’s an oxymoron; in the flesh.

“What would they say if they knew that everyone’s favorite boy smokes reds?”

It’s golden hour. We’re at the very top of the campus’s parking garage, sitting on one of the concrete blocks that are scattered about. 

“No one’s going to believe you,” he smirks in a way that makes him look even more inviting than he should, the smoke exiting his nostrils in a stream. I scrunch my nose at him in disgust but take a drag of my own menthol cigarette.

I watch the scent stain his perfectly ironed clothes, wondering how everything bad about him just happens to be invisible and elusive, how later anyone he meets will just think he’s been hanging around someone who smokes, most likely me; how all of it comes so easily for him.

The image of his face against the auburn sky, surrounded by clouds of grey, and the effervescence of his duality, is a sight I’ve become accustomed to, though every time, it still manages to make my breath catch.

It strikes me how peculiar it is that I recognize so much of him with eagerness, fixating on his little quirks and habits, ticking them off like there’s a list somewhere in the back of my head.

Though feelings are the last thing on my mind, and the idea of love almost comical, for when it comes to him, it’s hardly ever a shock to be enamored. To most people, I’d imagine it would be more of a surprise if you don’t adore him. 

And in the simplest sense, I do. Adore him, I mean. Although I see him as less of an infatuation, but rather more of a—

“Am I your new muse?” he cuts my train of thought, noticing, of course, how obviously I’m gawking at him, committing the lines that make him, to memory. Though I’d leave it to him to think it’s only because of my art block. He doesn’t know how infinitely fascinating he is.

“I haven’t drawn anything in ages,” I pointedly remind him, though I feel my fingers twitch slightly at the sore subject.

The movement draws his attention like an instinct, he was already expecting the mannerism, but he says nothing. For as much as he’s oblivious to his own devices, he seems to have me all figured out.

“You have a very picturesque face, is all,” I say simply.

Someone said artists can’t help but want to immortalize a lovely thing, and it’s that same fear of being unable to capture that loveliness that holds me hostage. 

Though the sight of him now, the cigarettes and boyishness, all the liquid gold, and the soft dimple on his right cheek, makes me think I could conquer it. 

“So draw me.” he says, smiling like the sun. Maybe I’d like to try.

—

He tends to scold me about my unhealthy sleeping habits, the way I wake up ten minutes before class, how I bravely stay up until morning to finish a show, my undying love for midnight road trips, but his hypocrisy rings truer than any bell tonight.

It is 1 am when I arrive at the baseball field to haul him out of his hubris.

The night air is just cool enough to not be biting, still, I cross my arms around myself as I approach the field. The bright floodlights make it seem as though the square he’s standing in is a different world apart from the pitch-black midnight. As though it’s the only place he exists in at the moment. A stage in which to present.

He’s standing in front of the pitching machine with dirt all over his white uniform clad knees and ankles, sweat lining an arch over his brow and down his jaw, his dark hair tousled haphazardly with the red streak peeking through. The old bats that we got from the utility room lay scattered about the bullpen around him in a haze. I can hear his heaving breaths even before I get close.

He is one thing when he’s in the halls, smiling and polite, then another when in front of the guys and the sunsets, laidback and easy. But here, in the face of empty bleachers and the night sky, with no one to see him, he is a whole different person all together.

He blinks at my direction once, but pays me no attention, and I expect none anyway.

He continues what he was doing, seamless and undeterred, practicing his right swing. I watch him do a couple, all hitting high and far, although his _tsk_ ’s after each one lead me to believe none of them were good enough. Though if I were him, I’d guess nothing ever is.

After twenty minutes of me attempting to bear a hole in his baseball cap, I realize he’s aiming to swing until his arms fall off, or for hell to freeze over, so I decide to draw the line in the sand. Quite literally.

“That’s enough,” I say finally. 

He ignores me, valiantly walking past where I stand to reload the machine, the hand still holding the bat lax at his side. I dart in front of him impatiently and grab his arm that’s loading the baseballs.

For a second, he doesn’t do anything but stare at my hand wrapped around his wrist, like he’s surprised I had the nerve to do it, to dare affront him, and then he chuckles darkly. 

He turns to me with a brow raised in loathsome. 

“You’re being silly.”

“I’m not letting you stay here all night.” 

“I need to practice.”

“I doubt there’s much you could change.” I mean it as a compliment.

He’s been practicing everyday for a week, going home later than the last, so I try my best to match his gaze to indicate this has to be the final straw. He tilts his head back, nodding with his tongue in his cheek as though _I’m_ the one being difficult, and all I can think about is: _if only the girls could see him now_. 

Like a boy who’s finished throwing a fit, he yanks at his arm once and I let go of it to face him properly. The bat in his right hand is raised to his shoulder, as he steps closer, his height towering over me. I think of saying something but I’m not sure what, so I just watch his knuckles turn white as he grips the bat with so much strength that I half-expect him to break it in half.

“You aren’t my mother, you know,” It’s rare for him to be angered over a simple thing. But it isn’t an impossibility. I’ve seen it before.

“Then stop acting like a child.”

Offense is something he’s unaccostumed to, even from me, so it takes a moment for him to register what I said. A part of me thinks of stepping back but I’m already too far in it now. 

His eyes narrow into a calculating, hawk-like stare, as though he’s trying to get into my head, looking for a way to destroy me, some place tender to stab at. It’s a staggering contrast to his usually wide and curious eyes. 

Perhaps I should be afraid, terrified of the bat in his hands and the glowering look on his face, but all I can think about is how I want to capture that expression, that side of him that would appear to be a fluke, a mistake, but surprisingly isn’t. Not now anyway.

My own fingers twitch as he lifts the bat so it’s level with his head.

I don’t know what I expect to happen next, as I look into the pools in his dark eyes, but I think, _here it comes_. All the rage, the severity, the pent up emotions one must have to be perfect all the damn time.

I anticipate the swing, the _whoosh_ of the wooden bat cutting clean through the air, and the hit. The pain that blooms stars. 

Ache will arise from his hands, and here I am leaning into it.

“You’re right,” he says suddenly, sounding apologetic as he looks straight into me, the bat still where it was before. “Let’s go home.”

Just like that, it’s gone.

—

The boys’ dorms are just a stroll away from the field.

He walks in front of me, a duffel bag at his side and his hands in his pockets.

The streetlights cast an amber glow over the pavement, and I watch it be painted by our shadows as we stride past it. The sight of his face saturated with fury is still plastered in my head, like an itch I can’t get rid of.

“Thanks for saving me— you know, from myself.”

He turns back to glance at me, his gaze soft, and I think about home.

“Anytime.”

—

The baseball game gets cancelled. 

We find out about it the next morning, sitting in pottery. 

He is beside me, listening intently to a lesson about glass making. At once, every phone inside the classroom lets out a _ding_ ; the school has made an announcement.

And I get to see firsthand, how something opaque breaks.

His face twists into a spiteful thing, though it’s gone as soon as everyone in the room turns to him, and I reach for his hand that’s been curled tightly into a fist, covering it with my own.

No one says a word after that.

—

It takes one day to write an article about him that’s good enough for the school newspaper, and one whole all-nighter to make it any real good.

Knocking at my dorm room at dawn, he’s still that type of person even though we’re inseparable by now, he comes to fetch me with a large coffee in one hand and his heavy chemistry book in the other.

He finds me at my desk with my legs pulled up to my chest and the finished article in front of me. 

“You just missed her,” I say as he hands me the coffee that’s as black as his hair, just the way I like it.

“Who?”

“My roommate,” I swivel back around to face my laptop. “You know how much she loves you.”

I hear my bed creak under his weight as he takes a seat, while I go over final edits. 

“Ha-ha, funny,” he says sarcastically, bringing a smile to my face. “I know she hates me for being here all the time.”

“She’s one of the rarities,” I hand him the article, then take a sip of the coffee. He crinkles his nose at me because caffeine is something he swears against strongly, saying it tastes like gasoline, though he keeps a pack of cigarettes on him at all times in the same breath.

“Read it!” He rolls his eyes but starts reading anyway.

I watch him brighten up and then go dim. Afterwards when he’s done, he stares at the screen, almost as if he’s trying to find his voice. Idly, I go open my closet to fish for a sweater.

“Do you really see me that way?”

“Of course,” I’m fumbling with a hanger. “How can I not?”

He says, “That guy in your article sounds too good to be true.”

“You are.” I say.

Feeling a sudden bout of awkwardness from my blunt profession, I leave him staring at the floor to go change in the bathroom. When I return, he has this look on his face that’s as though I’ve wounded him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, a forlorn smile painting his lips.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “About the game, I mean. I knew how much you prepared for it.”

“It’s not that,” he shakes his head, almost wistfully.

“Then what?”

“You make me _want_ to be good, do you know that?” he says, amused. “It’s all you.”

—

“I’ve got new intel,” he seizes the numerous books in my arms to carry for himself. He's ambushed me in the hallways. “The game’s back on.”

He skips down the rickety stairs with glee as I call after him. “Wait— what? How did that happen?”

“I’m not quite sure,” he steals his eyes away from me to rest the stack of books on the railing, giddy with excitement, then goes back to looking up at me again. “But apparently the principal didn’t turn up for the charity meeting, so they called it off.”

“Huh.” 

I mean to say something else but I hesitate at the way his face is split wide with so much plain joy, that I find it enough for an explanation. It’s enough for me at least, I think, as he stares up at me with his bright, childlike eyes.

—

The principal doesn’t turn up for the next charity meeting, not the day after that, or the week that comes. He doesn’t come back to campus at all, speculation about how he’s gone to vacation early this year hanging around the air, rumors of him and his ‘charity’ work getting tossed in the mud.

It’s been a week since anyone in the school board has seen the principal, when the eagerly awaited baseball game takes place.

I sit in the bleachers, surrounded by peppy students donning our blue and cream colors, the facepaint, all the palpable excitement and the whole nine yards.

I find _him_ easily on the green. The numbers _02_ splayed on his chest in bold black letters.

For a second, I figure it’s silly to think he would look but I watch him scan through the crowd with expectant eyes, until his eyes land on me. His face breaks into a wide smile, reminding me of daybreak, as he raises a hand and waves.

The row of girls behind me squeal loudly, figuring it was for them, and I laugh before returning it.

The night is full of stars and hope.

—

They win by a landslide, as they always do, and it makes one wonder what he was so worried about in the first place.

I look for the man of the hour in the locker rooms as soon as the game ends, unable to pull myself from the pride I feel for him to not be the one who congratulates him first, only to not see him there.

Pushing past the throngs of happy baseballers as I exit, I notice the door of the utility room slightly ajar.

 _I bet he’s thanking those old baseball bats for his win tonight_ , I think, laughing slightly, because it sounds like an exact thing he would do.

Then, I find him.

In the old room, under the dim yellow light, with blood in his hands, on his face, and this troubled, broken look in his eyes.

And of course, as these stories go, there is a body. A body on the grey linoleum floor.

It’s mangled in a way that one of the tied up legs rests unnaturally, and something as dark as wine is seeping from it, spreading everywhere.

 _There’s so much blood_.

Bile rises to my throat as the realization of it all dawns on me, and I have to resist the instinct to throw up as I look to him for an answer. He confirms everything with the way he exhales shakily.

At that, I try to bolt for the door but in a blink of an eye, he’s holding me by the shoulders, keeping me in place.

He says my name to get me to stand still and listen, and I think about how unfair it is, because he knows- he knows just how to play me like a fool.

“Listen, I can explain,” he says quickly, his voice unnervingly clear. “He’s still alive.”

“Alive?” I almost scream at him, then turn to a whisper, suddenly aware now of how easily anyone else could have walked into the room. “He’s lost so much blood—

“That’s just his leg, I had to— I had to break it,” he grimaces as he explains, reaching behind me to push the door shut and lock it. “He’s just passed out from shock.”

I give him a look like he’s grown two heads. “Do you hear what you’re saying? Are you insane?”

“He doesn’t even know it’s me,” he tells me, as though it makes this any better, and it’s only now that I notice the blindfold wrapped around the principal’s face. “He thinks terrorists have got him, like he’d ever be _that_ important, but I guess he hasn’t put two and two together.”

Of course, I think in the back of my mind, even _this_ , he does well. I stare at him, unsure whether I should be terrified or morbidly impressed.

“Well, say something.”

“I have to tell someone.”

“ _No_ , no you _don’t_ ,” he almost laughs, like what I’m suggesting is ridiculous. “I just told you I got this whole thing under control. I have a plan.”

“But this is _wrong_.”

“So what? You’re going to snitch on me? On your _best friend_?”

He registers the look of true apprehension on my face so he turns and lightly pushes me backwards until I hit the wall, any chance of me escaping him disappearing as fast as the coolness spreads through my shirt.

“Haven’t you heard of ‘ _back a dog up in a corner, you leave it no choice but to bite_ ’?” I try to sound as nonchalant as I can muster with my heart pounding loudly in my ears. 

He puts a finger on his chin as though pondering the thought, his white baseball uniform disheveled and ruined by all the blood makes him look unstable and dangerous.

Tilting his head, he says “Isn’t it ‘ _a cornered enemy has nothing to lose_ ’?”

I watch him with careful eyes, not wanting to betray my emotions, but it’s no use. I have _him_ to lose.

“But you aren’t my enemy, now are you?”

He’s right, of course. I’m the farthest from it. And even if I do tell someone—

“No one’s going to believe you.” he says it again, reading my mind, only this time he sounds apologetic.

I think about him with his straight As, his perfect attendance, perfect _everything_ , the lines of girls who would listen to his beck and call, his innocent charm that’s so enticing. 

How could have _anyone_ seen this coming?

But then I’m reminded of his curled fists, the rage bubbling just under the surface, the bat and his glare that could cut through ice.

I think about anticipating the strike, the tempered hit, and wonder _will he do it this time?_

He gets so close that I feel his breath against my eyelashes. The splatter of blood that stains his cheek makes his eyes pop, the crimson matching the streak in his hair, framing a crazed, wild expression. He looks like a wolf. The comparison lights a thought in my mind.

“You’re the one wearing the sheep’s clothing,” I whisper. “You’ve been pretending all along.”

There’s a flicker in his gaze that softens it, only for a moment, but it breaks his anger.

So I blatantly ask him to tell me what happened, though the shake in my voice is apparent.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” he says the words slowly, like he’s explaining it to the both of us. “We were- talking about the game, and then he was just so awful, I mean-

“What could he have done?” _To deserve this?_

“He told me he was going to cancel the release of the school newspaper,” he says the words in a string, so swift that it takes me a second to decipher what he means. “He said that it was a waste of time- waste of the school’s money, you should have seen how he laughed when he said that— and I just, I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t let that happen—

“No, no-” I point a finger at him, aware now of what he’s implying. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Look, I knew how much it meant to you and so- and so, I—” he stops there, unable to continue, letting go of me to sit on the dusty floor, while I struggle to breathe.

“Why didn’t you tell _me_?” I exhale painfully.

“You should see the way you’re looking at me right now,” he laughs but it’s empty.

I open my mouth to reply, only to close it again unsurely.

“Tell me,” he says to the floor, voice edging on a break. Whether it’s with venom or betrayal, I can’t quite discern. “Tell me you aren’t afraid of me.”

My chest seizes up in silence. I find myself unable to say a word.

He looks up at me carefully like I’m a bomb he didn’t want to explode, and for a moment I realize I’m not the only one who’s terrified. He’s hugging his knees to his chest, and he looks so _small_.

His eyes carry a sort of hesitance that I don’t recognize, not from him at least. And for once, I see him as a boy, aware that he’s made a terrible mistake, unsure who to ask forgiveness from. It’s the youngest he’s looked in years.

—

I end up sitting beside him with a washcloth trying to wipe away all the blood from his freezing hands, as though I could make him clean again, spotless.

He watches me do so with gentle eyes, all the viciousness forgotten, and in its place something akin to vulnerability.

“I’ve always wanted to know where to hit you where it hurts,” I say silently, watching his hands that shake slightly in my hold, thinking how something so beautiful could reap so much harm.

I think of Achilles. His greatness, his beauty, and his heel that cost him everything.

“You’d know what it is if you look in a mirror,” he says simply. “You hold all the reins now.”

I look at him then, his face painted with a look so bruised, so defenseless. As though for the first time in his life, in the years I’ve known him, he’s laying all his cards on the table. For _me_.

I decide there, reaching in my back pocket for a pack of reds and a lighter that was supposed to be a congratulatory present. I take one and put in my mouth to light it.

He watches me take a drag, and I grimace at the taste, exhaling the smoke in the air in front of us. Then, I take the cigarette out of my mouth, nestling it between my two fingers and offering it to him.

“So, what was your plan?”

—

The next day, the principal turns up in a hospital with no recollection of anything that had happened to him. Or of anyone. It’s ruled a mystery.

And my article about the baseball team’s wondrous center fielder becomes a smashing hit among the students.

**Author's Note:**

> so yea this turned out longer than expected. the ult bias is showing lol i might even reuse this for a diff fandom/ship bc it's a wonderful monstrosity
> 
> but anw thx for reading!


End file.
